I’m just curious. At your children’s high schools, who provides funding for clubs like Science Olympiad, robotics, etc. that have costs related to materials, competition entrance fees and travel? Does the school finance that, the PTA, or do the students pay fees to participate?
The school pays at the schools my kids attended. I have heard of schools where the students have to pay a little bit of dues, which help cover expenses and then the school picks up the rest.
I have never been involved with a school that has an active PTA at the high school level.
At every school my kids have gone to, the student pays. In California, the fee for playing a sport can be $800-1500. Clubs would depend on how much travel was involved.
EGADS! and we complain about doing a little bit of fundraising…DS, start selling those candy bars!!
We moved to Florida right before I was to pay $850 each for my kids to play lacrosse at a public school in California. I had paid $1500 the year before for one (but that was a private school). In Florida, the coaches were quite apologetic asking me to pay the $60 ‘pay to play’ fee and, because she started late, a $100 uniform fee (the others had done fundraising for this fee). I thought it was quite the deal!
Students pay dues and do fundraising to help cover expenses. Any amount not earned through fundraising is the responsibility of the student. The PTO only provides supplies/equipment for the school. Students even have to cover the cost of the bus driver (and substitute driver for the regular school route if necessary) when going on trips.
Thanks everyone. For those public schools that require students to pay for participation, how do they handle students who are unable to pay? Do those students fundraise themselves or is there a group fund that helps defray an individual’s costs?
Actually, California public schools with required fees for sports participation are in violation of AB1575, the no pay-to-play law. Google pay-to-play California. Courts have weakened the law somewhat since it was signed in 2012, but schools that don’t make such fees optional or allow fundraising in place of payment are at risk of losing a lawsuit. (Asking students to pay unless they are free and reduced lunch is also not allowed.) The penalty is not that great however; schools have to contact parents who have paid such fees in the past and ask if they want the fees refunded or to make those fees a “donation”.
The law actually just codifies the results of a lawsuit settled in 2010, so schools should have begun to change their fee policies in 2010.
Other things public schools in California shouldn’t be charging for include:
Science lab equipment or supplies
PE uniforms required to take the class (I believe our junior high violates this)
Participating in sports teams
Attending graduation ceremonies
Books used in class
Photography or art class supplies
Attending summer schools
Schools can get around some of this. For example, by offering activities such as summer school get ahead (not credit recovery, I think) classes through a foundation that is separate from the school district.
http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201120120AB1575
http://edsource.org/2013/no-pay-to-play-or-learn-at-public-schools-2/63656
http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_22702203/new-california-school-law-that-bans-fees-causes
Clubs however, may be interpreted differently. There are a lot of gray areas with the law. It depends on the interpretation of “educational activity,” which is defined to mean “an activity offered by a school, school district, charter school, or county office of education that constitutes an integral fundamental part of elementary and secondary education, including, but not limited to, curricular and extracurricular activities.”
Somehow, so far, sports and marching band have been interpreted to be more of an integral fundamental of education than the parts of math and science teams that are not integral to the existing curriculum. (Hmm…) For example, and elementary school might get away with offering extra classes on computer programming or a 2nd language if those were not normally a part of the elementary curriculum at that school.
More generally, since it looks like the OP is in Pennsylvania:
Our HS does ask for occasional checks for club travel to competitions. I’ve paid entry fees for math, science, and debate competitions and bought materials for Science Olympiad without complaining. It doesn’t bother me personally. I think part of the thinking is that you can be a member of the Science Club without going to Science Bowl and Science Olympiad, because the club does other activities. In other states, I think that ethically, there should be some option that allows low-income kids to participate at the same level.
We do have an active PTSA (like PTA but including students), but clubs are not funded through them. Technically, clubs are sub-accounts of the ASB (student council) for accounting purposes.
(Robotics has its own fundraising foundation.)
Our public hs does not have fees, and has resisted them mightily even as Pennsylvania funding for schools continues to run off the rails…Anyway, trips tend to be covered by parents/students and fundraisers but there is no pay to play that we have seen in Pittsburgh, nor the decimated programs as is the case in Philly. Our school has bery strong arts, athletics, and tech parent groups and I think that their financial support for “sundries” has helped. Also, those parent groups are united in their support of ALL activities as valuable, so when the board came after music or a club sport or Techy stuff, everyone raised questions. I do think some of the sports club teams pay for their equipment to some degree, and some pre-professional clubs have dues (that the district has a fund to cover for students who need that help)
Our local charters, of course, continue to have $500/plate fundraisers at swanky hotels, are permitted to sell advertising and branding, all while taking a cut of the public school budget. That amount is not required to relate to their actual cost per student. So, if our hs spends 4K per student, and a family sends Sam to Charter A, Charter A gets 4K even if they are only spending 2K per student.
Our public school has fees for some classes (mostly arts), any field trips, and for participation in all sports. (I believe these are waived for kids on free/reduced lunch). Some sports have fees over and above the participation fee, and there are also costs of team uniforms and gear. Many EC’s have fees depending on their costs, which of course vary wildly. Parents also pay for textbooks in dual enrollment classes, and for AP exams. I don’t believe the school pays for those.
In addition, many ECs, some sports, and a few classes expect or require kids to fundraise and/or work. It all worked out to very roughly $1000-1500 per year plus the money we were able to fundraise/work for (another few hundred dollars). Scholarship money for all this is pretty limited. Some EC’s have active parent boosters who may have a little money to help out with basic costs, but they don’t pay for travel to a far-off competition or something like that. I know some kids just don’t go. The more expensive ECs fundraise or have arrangements for the kids to work to help with costs, but it would be hard to completely cover them this way. My daughter was working about 5 hours per week for one of her activities one semester and I still had to write a big check.
@mathyone, what kind of work do kids do to pay for activities? Is it a job at the high school and where do they get the funds to pay the student with? That’s a concept I hadn’t heard about before.
I don’t know what the situation is for sports, but for the clubs my kids belong to funding varied. Some money came from the district, some money came from the PTA and some from fundraising. While no kid was turned away from a club, we did end up paying for most of the supplies for building projects for Science Olympiad. (I was happy when they gravitated from the engineering stuff to the more exam based events!) I’m quite sure if I’d said we couldn’t afford to buy balsa wood for a bridge we would have gotten help BTW. For Academic Team kids mostly carpooled to events. The Science Olympiad kids were very proud of beating out schools that not only had huge budgets for Science Olympiad, but even had a school day class period devoted to it.
@pittsburghscribe, no, they worked off campus nights and weekends. One of her groups provided the entire concessions staff at a large local sports venue, in an arrangement contracted with the concessionaire. She was mostly running the cash register, other kids were serving up the food. Some parents also worked as well.
The fundraising activities have included car washes, sales of magazines, fruit and other foods, running event nights at the school, running and working at a crafts bazaar, and various special arrangements and fundraising events with local retailers. Younger kid will spend 4 hours raising money for her sport tomorrow. We’ve spent over $200 on fees and required clothing for this one quarter of this one sport. Would love to have money handed to them by the school or the PTA so they could actually spend their time doing the activities instead of raising money for them.
The amount varies here as well, depending on how active the club/sport is and what their needs require. Some don’t require much more than buying a Tshirt. Others could be a few hundred. Thankful my daughter was never interested in cheer because they have to pay over $2000 each year plus are required to do a certain amount of fundraising.
At our NJ school, each family has to pay about $90 for band…this includes entry fees for competitions, food before events, etc. Band trips (e.g. to theme parks or Washington DC) are a separate fee.
Wow @bopper only $90? Our band fee is about $250, which isn’t bad. It also includes uniform rental, shoes and hat. There is a neighboring school that charges $1200 for band.
Wow. Those band fees are huge!
We have school fees for classes and club sports have a cost but varsity sports are free, with some gear requirements. Band and orchestra are free, other than instrument rental/purchase.